"Roger Long" wrote in message
.. .
Yes, you were bad. You broke the rules and the FAA could suspend your
license. I've seen the opinion letter.
I went round and round on this since our club doesn't make members pay
when
they move the plane for maintenance.
I called up our local FSDO and asked if this kind of thing was a
violation.
They said, "Of course not, that's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.
Who told you that?"
I faxed them a copy of the FAA counsel's opinion letter and they called
back
to say sheepishly that I was right. However they said that they have far
too much to do to ever worry about something like that.
In what way do you believe that the scenarios described in the FAA counsel's
opinion letter relate to the scenario described by Joe Johnson, or in fact
to the scenario of accepting free flying for maintenance?
All the scenarios in the letter involve an explicit payment in respect of
the flight by an Organization B to an Organization A. The counsel's opinion
revolves around this payment.
"A private pilot may not get paid to carry passengers or cargo and, even if
he does not get paid, he may not carry paying passengers or cargo if the
carriage has been paid to someone else. It should be further noted that a
private pilot may not serve as pilot in command of such an operation
even when he/she elects to forego actual monetary compensation..." (my
emphasis )
The "operation" cannot be conducted by a private pilot only because one
organization has paid a carriage fee for those passengers to another
organization. To do so would violate the first part of 61.113(a). The
counsel's opinion (Answer 2) is that the circumstances of the flight are not
covered by the exemption of 61.113(d).
If no such payment takes place, the passengers are not being carried for
compensation or hire. The counsel offers no opinion on this scenario in his
letter. It's quite clear that the counsel note is reinforcing the principle
that a private pilot cannot act as PIC of an air transportation operation
even if the private pilot is not reimbursed.
This is not hair-splitting as you suggest in your response to Peter
Gottlieb, but reading the answers in the context of the questions.
Julian Scarfe
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